Extend, Extend

The barangay and sangguniang kabataan elections slated on October 2010 should be postponed and Sections 1 and 2 of RA No. 9340 otherwise known as “An Act Amending Republic Act No. 9164, Resetting the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections, and for other purposes” should be so amended.

As scheduled, the next barangay and sangguniang kabataan elections shall be held five months after the 2010 national and local elections. This is a disaster waiting to happen. It cannot be denied that national and local elections foster animosity, enmity and endless bickering between the candidates and their followers. Often, elections in many towns and provinces become violent, bloody and chaotic. The nation cannot afford that it will again descend into turmoil and heated political contest barely five months after it is so submerged to one. Indubitably, the nation needs more than five months to lick its wounds.

Five months after the 2010 elections, the newly convened Congress will still be defining its legislative agenda while the executive will still be filling in the seats of governance. Another election a few months after will again distract the government from its development undertakings and poverty alleviation efforts. This is utterly counter-productive as it will hurl the nation back to mudslinging, political bickering and violent confrontations at a time when it is in the process already of regrouping and mending the damage wrought upon by a divisive political exercise.

Just as significant, the barangay election will entail a sizable amount of expenditure on the part of the government and will likely hog a large chunk of the new government’s budget for development and poverty alleviation.

While we concede that politicians, like diapers, have to be changed frequently; we do so for the very same reason.Changing them much later will not spell a difference, right, Noynoy Abunda?